Doctor Who Thread VI: "The Very Model of a Gallifreyan Buccaneer" [SPOILERS]

[comicshorse]

you should be mildly ashamed of yourself.

I suddenly get the feeling I missed a trailer somewhere

[Androgeus]

I suddenly get the feeling I missed a trailer somewhere

Yhea, I should probably have put it in spoiler tags. Don't worry it will make sense once the episode begins. (also why is Who on this late? I hate silly celeb dancing show)

[Giggling Ghast]

Guh, the 2d creatures were one of the more disturbing effects I've seen in a while.

[huttj509]

Spoiler: Names

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"I am the Doctor, and I name you, the *loud music swell*."


What did he call them? I think it started with a B...

The Boneless?
The Banished?
The Bratwurst?

[dps]

Spoiler: Names

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"I am the Doctor, and I name you, the *loud music swell*."


What did he call them? I think it started with a B...

The Boneless?
The Banished?
The Bratwurst?

The first one, I think.

[huttj509]

The first one, I think.

It just kinda bugged me.

Spoiler: Naming

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I mean, earlier was the whole "I'll think of a better name later" thing, but then in the moment of naming, the music muddied it. I mean, was it on purpose? "The Banished" would have been great in context of that scene.

I dunno, I feel that if it were deliberately muddied, it should be more obvious, and not seem like a musical mistake.

[dehro]

It will be forever bratwurst, in my head, thanks to you

[Brother Oni]

Yhea, I should probably have put it in spoiler tags. Don't worry it will make sense once the episode begins. (also why is Who on this late? I hate silly celeb dancing show)

There's nothing wrong with Strictly if you get invested. I enjoy it simply because of Steve Backshall, who's better known for his nature programmes on children's TV, is on it.

The fact that a lot of the mothers at school seem to spend their time drooling over him just makes it more entertaining.

It just kinda bugged me.

Spoiler: Naming

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I mean, earlier was the whole "I'll think of a better name later" thing, but then in the moment of naming, the music muddied it. I mean, was it on purpose? "The Banished" would have been great in context of that scene.

I dunno, I feel that if it were deliberately muddied, it should be more obvious, and not seem like a musical mistake.

We heard it fine the first time and it was the first one in your list.

I enjoyed the episode and I'm wondering if anybody had trouble understanding the Brizzle accent, given the issues with Capaldi's accent (that said, it wasn't very strong - I've heard thicker).

Spoiler

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While creepy, I feel they missed a bit of an opportunity to emphasise how alien a 2d creature would be to us. A bit more of a Lovecraftian flavour would be nice (Hounds of Tindalos for example), but the two guys being blended into the wall (in the opening credits and 22 in the warehouse) was well done.

[Rodin]

Wasn't even aware a Bristol accent was a thing, just sounded southernish to me.

Decent episode, although not especially remarkable. Best thing about it was the effects.

[dehro]

I would have cheered, had Clara punched obnoxious dude's lights out.

[BWR]

Still annoying Clara relationship stuff, but at least, like the Mummy, this takes backseat to the monster of the week. Not too bad, kept me entertained all the way through with only minor gripes (why do the twoders bother to identify people by numbers - how can they read them and understand them? can't they come back? Can't others come back later if the first group can't? How could they steal energy from the TARDIS? Why do the cloister ring for every little thing these days?)

[Brother Oni]

Wasn't even aware a Bristol accent was a thing, just sounded southernish to me.

As I said, it wasn't particularly strong in this episode but yes, Bristol has a separate accent to the areas around it.

I would have cheered, had Clara punched obnoxious dude's lights out.

Same here, but...

Spoiler: People surviving

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it's not the first time that the 'wrong' person has survived. It happened in the Voyage of the Damned, but as mentioned then, if the Doctor could decide who lives and who dies, it would make him a monster.

One thing mentioned in the Dr Who Extra caught my attention:

Spoiler: Dr Clara

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The Doctor's line about Clara making an excellent Doctor and goodness having nothing to do with it, is tied into the Doctor's fears that he's corrupting Clara, making her more like him. While I disagree with his assessment, it does tie in with his self image of not being a good person.

[dps]

I enjoyed the episode and I'm wondering if anybody had trouble understanding the Brizzle accent, given the issues with Capaldi's accent (that said, it wasn't very strong - I've heard thicker).

I'm an American ad I generally don't have trouble understanding the accents in Doctor Who. But going back at least to "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People" I've complained about the sound mixing making it hard to simply hear what the performers are saying. And it's not always music playing over the dialogue.

[Avaris]

So, not really many opinions on the latest episode yet?

Spoiler

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I enjoyed it, which to my mind makes two good episodes in a row! This was clearly the 'Doctor lite' episode of the series, and surprisingly Clara managed to pull it off fairly well.

The monsters were rather good, and it was nice to have the Doctor not knowing a thing about them. He seemed to be more frustrated about not being there in person than over the fact they were trying to kill people!

Particularly liked the hermit crab Tardis bit.

[Brother Oni]

So, not really many opinions on the latest episode yet?

I think most people thought it was a decent episode, so in accordance with only people who really liked or dislike it being vocal, opinions are muted for this one. The comments on Mummy on the Orient Express was more vocal simply because of how bad Kill the Moon was.

[Wardog]

Wasn't even aware a Bristol accent was a thing, just sounded southernish to me.

I'm not sure there is really such thing as a "southernish" accent in England. There are several similar accents spoken in the "West Country"* (the southwest corner of England), of which Bristol is one, albeit with a few funny quirks**. The south-east on England has completely different accents.


* In England, the West Country accents are typically associated with farmers/rural folk, although the region is probably more famous internationally as the source of the "Pirate" accent.

** In particular, a tendency to replace the last syllable with an "l" sound. Bristol used to be called "Bridgestow", which means "bridge place". "Bristol" is "Bridgestow" pronounced with a Bristol accent.



Anyway, back to Doctor Who:

I liked the latest episode. It did what DW does well: monsters that are so alien in concept they mess with your ideas of reality, and can't be dealt with simply by shooting them (or equivalent).

But enough of that: what I really want to do is add to the collective ranting about Kill the Moon.


First of, the broad themes:

Spoiler: undefined

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Whereas Flatline did what I think DW does really well, this one repeated one of the plot themes that I think DW does really badly. Namely: Humanity is in an absolutely desperate situation, seemingly the only possible solution is to take a hard decision that wouldn't be considered ethical in other situation were human extinction imminent, and if you do that, you're evil. No, not just the person who made the decision, or even that whole generation, but all humans, forever. You're all monsters - just as bad as the Daleks.

Other examples: The Christmas Invasion, that one with the space-whale-powered generation ship, and probably others that I can't remember off hand.

It's particularly galling given that "making though decisions in order to save the most people" is the sort of thing that The Doctor does all the time. How would killing the moon-creature be worse than (e.g.) what the 10th Doctor did to the Racnoss, or the Time Lords.

We don't even know that the moon-dragon-butterfly thing is sapient (let alone that the unhatched embryo is).

More specific criticisms (under the general heading of "science does not work that way):

Spoiler: undefined

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• The writers (and by extension the Doctor) clearly don't understand the importance of the Moon for life on earth. If the moon vanishes, that will cause the extinction of all organisms that live in the intertidal zone (due to either drowning or drying out, depending on whether they end up permanently submerged or exposed. That will then have knock-on effects for all sorts of other marine and littoral organisms, due to their main food source vanishing.
• You will also make the night consistently much darker, which will harm all sorts of nocturnal animals.
• If you remove the tides, you'll probably alter climate as well, although I haven't had a proper search to see what the actual effect would be.
• The Moon's "eggshell" is going to have a lot of mass in it. Approximately 2.8*10¹⁸kg by my estimate. Exactly where that all ends up I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it will end up falling to earth. I don't know if this will be better or worse than the Endor Holocaust, but I can't imagine it would be good.
• ...
• Oh, so conservation of mass doesn't exist any more? Well, why didn't you say! That solves everything!

Calculations:

Spoiler

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Using a chicken egg as a model:
Chicken egg dimensions (average): 57mm x 45mm. Lets treat it a sphere 50mm in diameter.
Chicken eggshell thickness: 0.4mm
So thickness is approx. 0.8% diameter
Moon diameter: 3474km
That makes a moon-egg shell 28km thick.
Volume of the shell wall = 4 / 3 * Pi * (1737^3 - (1737-28)^3) = 1.04 * 10⁹ km³
Density of surface moon rock varies between 2200 and 3460 kg/m3 depending on type. Lets call it 2830 for simplicity.
That makes the mass of the moon "shell" (very) approximately 2.8 * 10^18kg

[dehro]

As I said, it wasn't particularly strong in this episode but yes, Bristol has a separate accent to the areas around it.



Same here, but...

Spoiler: People surviving

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it's not the first time that the 'wrong' person has survived. It happened in the Voyage of the Damned, but as mentioned then, if the Doctor could decide who lives and who dies, it would make him a monster.

I didn't say I wanted him dead, lol

[Sagitta]

I liked Battlefield...

So did I! My point was that it made sense for the McCoy era, but would have jarred badly with any of the earlier Doctors.

When I refer to New Who, I mean 21st Century. With hindsight that should have been a new paragraph, but I won't edit it now, it's a fixed point in time.

I enjoyed Flatline. This series certainly has its strong moments.

Spoiler: Flatline

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It was nice to see the Doctor trying to cope with the same kind of treatment he once meted out to the Meddling Monk. More generally, his predicament added to the tension and showed up the limitations of his
Clara got to actually develop. And I think this is the first episode ever she hasn't done anything annoying along the way. The bit with her headband was a particular high point.
Prominent visual effects usually obstruct the story, but in this case they enhanced it, especially the early parts. I'm sure it's no coincidence Britain's most famous living artist comes from Bristol.
The guest characters didn't seem real, except for the driver. The misanthrope was especially unconvincing, unlike his equivalent in Voyage of the Damned.
I wasn't listening very closely, but none of them sounded like genuine Bristol accents.
As huttj509 said, it was a huge anticlimax to have Capaldi's overblown speech drowned out by the even more overblown music. I can only suppose that was a deliberate joke by the director. Fortunately iPlayer provides subtitles, otherwise I would never have known they were called the Bratwurst.

[Pex]

They've stopped with the eyebrows jokes at last, but they do continue the in-jokes.

"Are you my mummy?" could only be missed by those who haven't seen the show before. I also like from an episode earlier where the Doctor gave some rules including no hanky-panky in the TARDIS. That's a new rule.

[Brother Oni]

So did I! My point was that it made sense for the McCoy era, but would have jarred badly with any of the earlier Doctors.

Fair enough.

I wasn't listening very closely, but none of them sounded like genuine Bristol accents.

The strongest example was the worker who called out to Clara when she first approached the underpass. The graffiti artist definitely didn't have the accent and his boss didn't have much of one.

"Are you my mummy?" could only be missed by those who haven't seen the show before. I also like from an episode earlier where the Doctor gave some rules including no hanky-panky in the TARDIS. That's a new rule.

Probably because he doesn't have the energy for such an exhausting courtship and marriage again.

[Kato]

I'm an American ad I generally don't have trouble understanding the accents in Doctor Who. But going back at least to "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People" I've complained about the sound mixing making it hard to simply hear what the performers are saying. And it's not always music playing over the dialogue.

Yeah... it's not often but once in a while the sound mixing is a bit lacking.


Overall on Saturday... decent episode. I thought they'd do something stupid about recharging the TARDIS but what they did was decent. The effects were pretty good as well, mostly. (The large hand was a bit... meh)
Overall, nothing special but good episode nonetheless. (Also, I don't really have that much issue with the annoying guy. Geez, not all people are nice. Shocking.)

[Razanir]

(The large hand was a bit... meh)

But it was worth it for the Addams Family reference.

[Brother Oni]

But it was worth it for the Addams Family reference.

Spoiler: Thing

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I think Kato meant the other large hand that grabbed the worker, not the Thing hermit crab with a TARDIS shell.

[Aotrs Commander]

Definitely a better episode than the last two or three (though I'm in the minority about last week's I know).

Clara did rather well... Perhaps almost too well...! But then again, out of all the Doctor's companions, she arguably has seen him over his lives more than any other, so...

[Androgeus]

Clara did rather well... Perhaps almost too well...! But then again, out of all the Doctor's companions, she arguably has seen him over his lives more than any other, so...

It's never really said how much Clara remembers from all the splinters.

[Brother Oni]

It's never really said how much Clara remembers from all the splinters.

As I understand it, she doesn't, but there's a quintessential 'Clara-ness' that permeates through all the splinters ("Run you clever boy and remember") that the Doctor recognises.

[Calemyr]

As I understand it, she doesn't, but there's a quintessential 'Clara-ness' that permeates through all the splinters ("Run you clever boy and remember") that the Doctor recognises.

She has some memory of them, as she acknowledged it when the Eleven said she would remember Ten and Clara clearly remembered all 11 Doctors when she first met the War Doctor, but how much is unclear. It's probably a more severe case of Rory's memories as a Roman: "I can remember it, if I want to, but usually its behind this door..." That was just two thousand years as an alternate reality plastic replica, though. And he was aware of his status in those memories. The splinter memories would be far more disjointed, with little meshing with Clara's actual memories. There's nothing linking the splinter memories to her own, making it very hard for her to look through them. If Rory's alt memories are one huge mass usually hidden behind a door, Clara's would probably best be described as a door hiding a room full of file cabinets filled with her splintered lives and no filing system to speak of.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It's never really said how much Clara remembers from all the splinters.

To misquote Straczynski, "As much as the plot demands".

Grey Wolf

[DigoDragon]

I enjoyed Flatline.

Spoiler

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The humor was great and I always like to see companions that do stuff. Clara's idea for repowering the TARDIS was neat.

Never knew the TARDIS had a 'siege mode'. Probably a good thing that the train didn't hit that.

I particularly liked the Doctor's comment how some of the Boneless 'may even survive the trip back'. Capaldi is really good in his presence when he gets angry. :3

[Dienekes]

As I understand it, she doesn't, but there's a quintessential 'Clara-ness' that permeates through all the splinters ("Run you clever boy and remember") that the Doctor recognises.

Which is pretty sad really. It feels like Rory the Roman all over again, it was an incredibly interesting concept that never gets brought up again. Personally, I would find dealing with Clara's memories throughout time more engaging than whether or not she ends up with Pinky.